Freddie McGregor recalls being booked on Pan Am Flight 103 that crashed over Lockerbie
Taxi Gang, Dean Fraser, Copeland Forbes should have been onboard
Published:Sunday | December 26, 2021 | 12:12 AMYasmine Peru - Sunday Gleaner Writer
Last Tuesday, December 21, marked 33 years since Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing everyone on board, and it is a catastrophe that resounds with several Jamaican artistes and musicians who were booked to travel on that ill-fated flight. The crash sent shock waves around the world.
Veteran booking agent and artiste manager Copeland Forbes took time out to remember how, in 1988, he and members of the renowned Taxi Gang, Freddie McGregor and Maxi Priest, were scheduled to travel on Flight 103 from Heathrow Airport in London to New York City but changed their plans.
Less than 40 minutes into the flight, Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie after a bomb that had been hidden in a suitcase was detonated. All 259 people on board were killed, and 11 individuals on the ground also died. The website fbi.gov states that “until 9/11, it was one of the world’s most lethal acts of air terrorism and one of the largest and most complex acts of international terrorism ever investigated by the FBI”.
In his Facebook post, Forbes wrote, “Wow, omg today Dec 21 is the 33rd anniversary of the Pan Am flight 103 which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland shortly after take off from LHR airport to NYC. Sly & Robbie & The Taxi Gang just finished the Taxi Connection European leg of the Taxi Connection tour featuring Freddie McGregor and Maxi Priest, and headed home after three months on the road.”
He explained, however, that they all decided to leave London either earlier or later.
Freddie McGregor remembers the entire situation clearly and shared it with The Sunday Gleaner. “Bwoy, it was drama!” he recalled, noting that the group was eager to leave London because it was so cold.
“So when Copeland told us that he had called Pan Am and they had space on the [earlier] flight, I was the one who suggested to him that we leave on the Monday because it was very cold in England that year, 1988 December. That’s when we came to Sting with Maxi Priest. It was his first performance in Jamaica, too. We didn’t want to do Sting that year. Robbie kind of forced it, and Sly decided let’s go along with it. I said to Copeland, ‘Why don’t we go to Miami then and just shop a Miami, rather than stay yaso? It too cold.’ And it was like a chain reaction. Dean Fraser and the rest of musicians seh ‘Frederick, yuh right.’ And with that said, Copeland called the airline and changed our flight, and the bus driver said he would take us to the airport. That’s what happened and we got the flight on Monday,” McGregor said.
McGregor, Dean Fraser, Chico, and Nambo were among those who went to Miami, and they hit the street on the Tuesday to do their Christmas shopping.
DUMBSTRUCK BY NEWS
“When we came back that evening, we all went to Dean’s room, and we all sit down a talk and a reminisce on everything that we do over the last three months, how the US was, how Europe and Japan was … The news was coming on, but the TV volume was down, and Dean shout out and seh, ‘A plane crash!’ and everybody attention was focused on the TV. Lo and behold, we saw the tail of the Pan Am flight. We heard the reporter say, ‘Pan Am Flight 103 just took off from Heathrow airport and crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 people.’ Well, I don’t have to tell you what our belly reaction was at that time. Everybody was dumbstruck, we were lost, we were frightened, scared, shocked everything in one.”
Their focus, McGregor recalled, was that Sly, Robbie, and Maxi Priest should have been on that flight because they had stayed back in London and should have travelled on Tuesday.
“It was pandemonium for us. We couldn’t sleep. Everywhere was closed in London, so there was no way for us to find out if they were okay. And we kinda bleached and stayed up until early morning. As the phone ring over at Island Records it was Suzette who answered the phone. She said, ‘It’s okay, ‘Frettie’ I know, they are fine. They are all booked to fly down on British Airways. They are probably on their way now. And there came the sigh of relief.”
He shared that “a sista who came to our show in Birmingham on the Saturday night at the Hummingbird” had told them that she was going to be on the flight with them on the Tuesday because she had a travel agency and saw where the group was booked on the flight. “She made the flight on the Tuesday and she and her son passed. It was so sad.”
After that, paranoia set in for McGregor, and for a whole year, he battled with the fear of flying. “I had to fly, but I wasn’t comfortable flying. I used to just think bout it and think the plane a go explode. That happened to me for a good year before I got over it. Whenever I book a flight now, I just book a window seat and say my prayers and leave everything in the hands of the Almighty.”
He concluded, “God is good and God love we, and Him know we have work to do.”